


14th Day of Winter - Best Wishes

by unjaundiced



Series: Winter Spirits [17]
Category: Naruto
Genre: 25 Days of Fic, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Gen, Hurt, Kid Fic, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-14
Updated: 2015-12-14
Packaged: 2018-05-06 02:01:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5398622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unjaundiced/pseuds/unjaundiced
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which everyone makes a trek to a temple to make a blessing or wish for the coming year and Kakashi loses something important, then gains something valuable in return.</p><p>Set the year after <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/5398166">Gifts Better Not Given</a>. The kids are 12 and 13. Minato and Kushina are 21. Everyone else is 22. Sorry, Rin is going to be a sort of obnoxious 13-year-old girl in this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. An Eye for an Eye

_A tooth for a tooth_

* * *

 

"It's so cold! And it's so far! And it's too—”  
  
Kakashi tuned out Obito's incessant whining and pulled his scarf up over his nose, grimacing as the clumsy boy stumbled into him. He shouldered the older boy back towards his side of the trail and picked up his pace. Obito turned his whining on Rin, determined to gain some sympathy. She huffed and picked up her pace to catch up to Kakashi.  
  
"Kakashi-kun! Please wait for—” Rin was jostled aside as an energetic green blur ran past.  
  
"Oi! My rival,” Gai shouted, speeding up as Kakashi walked faster. “Let us race to the temple!”  
  
Kakashi didn't acknowledge the challenge and merely broke into a jog, two of his newest dogs circling his legs like little satellites . A disgruntled looking Pakkun sat in the pouch of his hood and clung to his neck with a dour grimace.  
  
"What! Why are you running ahead!” Gai shouted, sprinting to keep up. “Stop being so cool that you leave my face cold with your tailwind! It is you who should be buffeted by my wake!”  
  
"What?” Chouza mumbled, looking up from a box of Pocky he was busy devouring. “Did Gai-kun say something about a buffet?”  
  
"Not even close, my friend. Say, have you seen these mushrooms? They grow exclusively on this mountainside and make—”  
  
To Chouza, Inoichi looked like a slightly crazed man whose movements sounded like gravel. He stopped chewing.  
  
"—and in the spring time you can make a tea with the blossoms from that tree which is _wonderful_ for—”  
  
He stuffed another two sticks of Pocky in his mouth and kept walking.  
  
"Are you _ignoring_ me? Cho-kun! Hello! Cho-kun! Shika-san! Please help me! I am imparting important botanical information and I should be respected by—”  
  
Shikaku yawned and patted his overwrought friend on the shoulder before closing the gap between Chouza and himself. “Don't really care about flowers, man. You know that,” he said, tossing a lazy wave at his gaping friend.  
  
"Now _see_ here!” Inoichi recovered himself and ran after the duo.  
  
 "What low class behavior,” Hiashi complained bitterly, crossing his arms. His more genial brother pat him on the shoulder and breathed a white cloud before grinning. Hiashi seemed to pout harder.  
  
A familiar bout of coughing erupted behind them and Hiashi visibly slumped as he dug in his pocket for a cough drop to give Hayate, touching briefly upon the rough washi paper of the omikuji in his pocket before grasping the lozenge. The frail boy seemed to light up and sidled close to the man, smiling weakly and holding out his hands. Unfortunately, his trail-buddy Anko thought the cough drop was candy and immediately tried to tackle him for it.  
  
As the rest of the children and resident-interns stopped to either gawk or break up the fight, the quad of children at the head of the group charged on heedlessly and without supervision, a pair of energetic puppies their only chaperons.  
  
In his hurry to evade the green menace busy shaking loose the trail of stone steps lodged in the mountainside with his reckless pursuit, Kakashi took a wrong turn and veered away from the dirt path he was supposed to be following, hopping onto one of the game trail highways , two tan dogs bouncing through the underbrush at his side like small deer. Pakkun's paws tightened on Kakashi's neck with tension.  
  
Gai missed his rival's departure and blindly charged straight ahead, arms pumping wildly. Gasping for breath, Obito half limped and half ran after him, tripping on the edges of the steps and completely missing Kakashi's departure from the main trail.

Rin skidded on a layer of wet leaves, flailing awkwardly before catching herself on a jutting tree branch. She coughed, blowing hard from the sudden exertion when she saw a light colored clump of hair stuck to the end of the branch. Further into the gloom of the woods, she could see another small bunch of hair and if she really searched for it, she could just barely catch a hint of the smell of dog—Kakashi! She would catch him alone and confess her feelings to him. It would be like something out of one of those shoujo magazines Kurenai liked to read with Kakashi starring as the handsome yet aloof hero. She flushed slightly and surreptitiously sidled onto the game trail before lunging into the gloom, mind on silly romantic things.  
  
  
Kakashi craned his neck and looked around. He wouldn't admit to being lost, but it didn't look as if he was on the main trail anymore, that he hadn't been for quite some time. The trail he had come down had been crisscrossed with so many feeder trails and overrun with so many fresh animal tracks that he wasn't sure where he'd come from or where he was going. He had reached a clearing he didn't remember visiting before, but the rest of the forest seemed a confusing echo of sameness so it was hard to tell.  
  
He looked down to Guruko who had his head buried in a bush and tapped him on the rump with his foot. The puppy looked up, panting happily. Kakashi rolled his eyes and looked around for Shiba. The tightening of small paws at the nape of his neck made him turn his head to see what Pakkun was straining for and he saw the other puppy bounding up an almost invisible trail towards what looked to be an impassible rock face. He shrugged and turned onto the feeder. What could he lose?  
  
The feeder trail turned out to be a narrow pathway that skirted the bedrock jutting out from the dirt—the heart of the mountain itself—and clambered up over arterial stone shelves that formed a kind of makeshift staircase better suited for nimble cloven-hoofed animals or spirits than humans.  
  
Leaning against a particularly uncomfortable outcropping, Shiba pressing tight against Kakashi's legs as he passed him on the narrow path, Kakashi was leaning more towards the idea that it was a spirit staircase than an actual usable path. This idea was further encouraged when he saw the narrow nearly sheer climb between a jut of rocks, above which the soaring red beams of a Torii gate stood proudly silhouetted against the graying sky. Guruko pawed at his pant leg and gave him an impatient look before he braced his fore-paws on the rock and started to scramble up the seemingly impossible path.  
  
Kakashi, not one to be outdone by a dog, heaved-to and clambered up after him, finding himself startled at how much easier it was than he thought it would be as the wind hurtled itself at his back and pushed him up. The surprisingly agile dogs ran up and down the pathway around him, bumping into his legs and causing brief moments of absolute terror that had him shaking by the time he hauled himself up to the temple plateau.  
  
He was just starting to look around when the slapping of shoes echoed off the courtyard stones before a nun hushed the intruders. The shoes muted themselves to a quieter patter, thumping closer as they crossed from stone to wooden floor, slowing as they neared. Kakashi turned curiously.  
  
“No way!” Gai stood in the doorway connecting the central courtyard to the sky temple where Kakashi was standing, looking horribly aghast.  
  
"I can't believe it,” Obito muttered around gasps as he struggled to catch his breath, face flushed from running. “What are you? A robot?”  
  
"How are you so amazing? You are truly a worthy opponent!” Gai declared, pointing dramatically at the bemused boy.  
  
Kakashi opened his mouth to say something snide then paused. He cocked his head, listening for the odd sound that had distracted him. Gai opened his mouth and Kakashi held up his hand for silence, creeping towards the termination of the sky temple and peering over the edge. He stepped back, paused, and looked back over.  
  
"Rin-chan?” Obito peered over, kneeling at the precipitous edge and clutching the stubby carpet of grass to anchor himself. “Rin-chan, how did you... Why are you down _there?_ ”  
  
The girl was marooned on an outcropping of rock with no apparent way up or down. It looked like she had made her way to her location by traversing a series of granite nodules abutting the cliff face. She had gotten stuck and looked panicked.  
  
"I'm sorry, I don't know what happened,” She whimpered. “I just got lost and I followed the light.”  
  
"It's okay, we'll come get you,” Obito promised, jumping to his feet and scurrying around the edge of the clearing before clambering over a sign warning of a steep drop and using hanging tree roots to abseil.  
  
"What are you doing, you idiot? Just leave her and we'll call for help,” Kakashi muttered, glaring at his classmate.  
  
"We can't just leave her there, you jerk. What kind of person are you anyhow?” Obito yelped as rocks popped out of their nests, making his feet slip as they danced down the mountainside. He clutched his organic rope as his feet kicked about for purchase.  
  
"Damn you, you moron,” Kakashi spat, roughly pulling Pakkun out of his hood and dropping him on the grass. “Stay there,” he commanded. Whether he meant the dog or Obito, it was uncertain.  
  
Kakashi jogged towards the towering shimboku in the sky temple's yard and bowed, briefly uttering an apology as he yanked hard on the shimenawa that girdled its base. Tanned hands closed around it next to his and he blinked before turning and finding a determined Gai pulling on the rope with his whole body. He had forgotten about the boy.  
  
"We have to hurry,” Gai grunted, eyes widening in surprise as the braided straw suddenly gave way as if in a sudden exhale. “Thank you, gods,” he muttered hurriedly, awkwardly throwing part of the heavy rope over his shoulder and waddling towards the drop off. Kakashi hefted the other end and ran with him, the strange prickly sensation of being watched chasing after him.  
  
Obito, of course, hadn't listened and had skidded his way down the rock face, landing close to where Rin was trapped. He was standing at on an unstable floor of pebbles and trying to direct her towards a way down, not paying attention to the way his shifting weight sent the stones skittering off into nothingness.  
  
"Damn you, _stay put!”_ Kakashi barked, swinging himself over the edge, clinging to the same vines Obito had used and moving with more agility than the clumsy Uchiha.  
  
"Kakashi-kun!” Rin shouted, half in panic and half in delight. This wasn't the way she thought things would go, but in shoujo-manga-land, anything would work.  
  
" _Kakashi?_ I'm here and you're squealing over _that jerk?_ ” Obito sounded rather upset and had started flailing and pointing, further dislodging more stones.  
  
"Obito, shut up!” Kakashi reached the end of the vines and dangled for a moment, taking a breath before dropping the last few feet to the ledge below, feet sliding on the loose dirt. This was _dangerous._  
  
"You're dropping honorifics now?! How dare you be so informal with me!” Obito yelped, turning his attention to the gray-haired boy picking his way towards him. “Oh no. You stay away!”  
  
"Idiot!” Kakashi growled, reaching for the other boy, one foot slipping as the rocks slid again. The end of the shimenawa dropped behind him with a hollow thump, sliding slightly on its stone casters. “Have you even looked where you're standing! This. Is. _Crazy.”_  
  
Obito leaned in, eyes darkening in irritation. “What do you me—”  
  
His feet slipped. The world disappeared and he fell towards empty space. He couldn't even gasp. Rin might have shrieked his name but the thing he heard loudest was someone grunting “Shit!” right in his ear.  
  
Obito jerked in midair, body snapping outwards as Kakashi jumped out and grabbed his arm, his arm locked in a death grip around the flared broken end of the shimenawa. They fell back towards an even more sheer plane of the mountainside, colliding with startled grunts. Gai was braced in a treacherous position, feet tangled in the snarl of roots dangling from the side of the cliff, arms wrapped around the other end of the straw rope as he leaned into the mountain with his whole body. Three small dogs had their teeth sunk into the far end of the rope poking up over the edge and were tugging backwards with high pitched growls. A nun came to see what the ruckus was about and immediately banged the prayer gong while shouting for help before hurrying to the edge where Gai had lock himself in, whispering “Oh Kami, oh Kami” as she peered down.  
  
"K-kakashi-kun,” Obito babbled, legs kicking at nothing. “W-we could... We could die and I just wanted to tell you I'm sorry and I—”  
  
"Shut up. We're not going to die.” Kakashi had apparently never gotten the memo that one should be properly penitent when faced with his own mortality. “We're going to be _fine_. And when we are fine, I will kick your ass so you don't do stupid crap like this again.”  
  
“K-kaka—”  
  
Obito's words ended on a gasp as the ancient ties on the shimenawa suddenly unraveled—as if they were cut by an irritable god who hated all sorts of meaningful moments—and the rope essentially disintegrated into grass, falling around them like rain as they plummeted into nothingness once more.  
  
"I won't let you die.” Kakashi promised, gripping Obito's arm as they crashed through the treeline.  
  
The next moments were a blur of green and brown and distant cracking. There was no pain, but everything was a confusing loss of control as Kakashi felt his fingers let go of Obito's sleeve. One of his arms hit a branch and was thrown skyward against his will, the other flapping around like a broken wing. His legs weren't flailing but they _were_ sort of fluttering behind him and he had the vague thought that he was falling headfirst towards the ground and _that_ was a very bad thing. Something struck him in the face and everything burst into stars and he wondered distantly if he had suffered blunt force trauma to the skull. Then the roots and rocks and dirt were suddenly _right there._

He came to slowly and distantly. He couldn't quite feel his arms or legs and couldn't hear anything. It took all his concentration to breathe, to tell his body how to inhale and exhale in fragile gasps that didn't quite seem to capture anything. He was breathing quickly to draw in the air, each breath the smallest sip of atmosphere; a taste rather than a mouthful. Each breath became like a living thing, a beast in the distant corners of his ears; the only sound in the world.  
  
He couldn't see, couldn't think. Every time he stop thinking of breathing, he stopped doing it. He didn't feel himself choking but on an academic level he knew he was suffocating, so he thought about it—and he breathed.  
  
Slowly he moved his eyes, hazily wondering why everything was dark, why everything was so heavy and numb. In between breaths, he thought of seeing and fought to open his eyes.  
  
One eyelid fluttered.  
  
He stopped to breathe.  
  
It fluttered again and Kakashi thought hard about opening his eye. He screamed at his brain to just...  
  
_Open._  
  
_The._  
  
_Eye._  
  
It was almost a physical thing, raising the eyelid. He felt as if he was throwing his whole body into the effort, as if his eyelid was a great stone to be moved—He almost forgot to breathe.  
  
It took days.  
  
Minutes.  
  
Hours.  
  
The eye finally opened but couldn't see. Everything was too bright and all wrong; a washed out grayish color and distant like he was looking through the wrong side of a telescopic lens. The edges of the world were blurred while the center was over-sharp like the eye of a large format camera. Something pale hovered into view as the eye struggled to adjust and there was an almost dizzying adjustment in focus as the eye fixated on the object, blurring all else.  
  
Fingers—his own fingers.  
  
He twitched them—he twitched them in his mind anyhow. In the view of his eye, they didn't move. They might have trembled a micron but they didn't move.  
  
He breathed and tried to twitch his fingers again. Something flickered and he thought it might have been a finger. It might have been an optic nerve shifting.  
  
Broken.  
  
He breathed and his lips moved slightly. He was certain they moved though he wasn't sure what he wanted to say. He couldn't speak, couldn't think of the words nor find the energy. He just exhaled.  
  
A finger twitched.  
  
He didn't feel it move.  
  
He stared at it lazily and willed it to move again. The fingertip of his pointer finger twitched slightly. He put all his force into his arm and _willed_ it to move. It curled slightly; he felt exhausted.  
  
His eye drifted lazily again, sliding closed as he felt himself drift away.  
  
_No._  
  
He dragged himself back and willed his eye open again.  
  
_Breathe._  
  
He couldn't really feel it, but there was a slight pressure starting to develop on the side of his face; on the left side. He couldn't open one eye because he was lying on the side of his face.  
  
Satisfied with that explanation, Kakashi looked around again, everything whizzing past in ultra-sharpness. The world was still washed out and he thought a bit abstractly that he must have struck his head and was suffering a concussion. He couldn't become unconscious then.  
  
Something blue-and-orange flickered into brief clarity before fading to a dirty gray-and-peach colour—Obito. Obito was lying within arm's reach—or what would have been arm's reach could Kakashi control his arm enough to reach out.  
  
_Obito_ , he sighed, lips twitching to form the words but not fully able.  
  
Obito was lying in the opposite direction of Kakashi, face down on his left side. His right eye was open and seemed to be tracking, dark iris flaring in the low light. The soil was dark and damp beneath his face and his lips were trembling; forming words.  
  
Kakashi wanted to ask him how he felt; if he was going to be okay, to tell him everything would be okay—to lie to him.  
  
He couldn't.  
  
Obito's eye slowly coasted down Kakashi's face to his broken form before closing. It opened a moment later and Obito's arm shifted tremulously in Kakashi's direction.  
  
_Don't!_ Kakashi wanted to scream. Didn't the idiot know moving was a big mistake?  
  
Obito's lips moved and he exhaled with his whole body, the last bit of his breath vibrating his vocal cords as his eye slid closed.  
  
_Sorry._  
  
Kakashi couldn't close his eye.


	2. Makes Us Both Blind

_Leaves our bite weak_

* * *

 

Kakashi was in a nest of fluff and he couldn't remember what the real world felt like. There were no real colors or sounds, just sensations of overwhelming security and softness. He never wanted to leave. He never wanted to wake up; to open his eyes.  
  
Something about that seemed wrong to him and he battled himself over what it was. The fuzz threatened to swallow him and he sank partway into it before he forced himself away from it.  
  
_Something was wrong._  
  
The first thing to return was sound.  
  
Kakashi still couldn't see anything, couldn't feel anything. There was just a hazy plushness to the world that threatened to swallow him whole. But he could hear and the sounds bothered him. At first the sounds were a distant, muffled rattling that was reminiscent of the meal trolleys Konoha Hospital used, only cheaper. There were the metallic sounds of steel bumping against glass and murmured voices he couldn't quite make out. He struggled to figure out what was going on when the fluff welled up around him and dragged him down. Kakashi wanted to scream.  
  
The second thing to return was touch sensation.  
  
The next time consciousness found Kakashi, the layers of fluff burned away much more easily though he still felt numb and disoriented. The metallic sounds were back, this time accompanied by a tired squeaking he had learned to associate with hospital beds. There was a voice speaking to him—a boy's voice—but he couldn't quite hear it right, nor could he make out what it said. He could feel the pressure of the sheets pressing down on him though, and something lying on his face. He could feel something pressing on the skin of his arm though he couldn't really feel the finite textures of anything.  
  
Something leaned against him; something soft—a body.  
  
Something lay itself across his chest lightly and tightened briefly—an arm.  
  
A moment later and there was an inescapable pressure on his arm and the wall of fluff crashed down around him. This time he gave in with dignity.  
  
The third thing to return was smell; taste followed shortly after.  
  
Kakashi breathed the sharp sweet smell of oxygen before his ears registered that they could hear; before his skin realized it could feel. The gas was gentle but insistent and pushing against his face in a steady flow. It was almost like tasting a rainstorm before it arrived, like breathing in lightning. It was an addicting sensation and for a while, he ignored the world and simply breathed. He couldn't remember why it was so important, why he felt breathing should mean something to him.  
  
_Kakashi-kun._  
  
It took him a while to realize that someone was speaking, that the words weren't ghostly echoes; dreams emerging from the hazy cloud he'd been hiding in. The voice spoke again and he realized it was his father.  
  
“Kakashi-kun, how do you feel?” His father sounded gentle; he sounded fragile—this wasn't his father.  
  
Kakashi's head swiveled slowly across his pillow toward the voice. Something touched his hair, brushed it aside. Something touched the skin of his hairline and he realized he couldn't feel anything below it. He was still numb.  
  
The thing moved to his arm and gently moved in slow motion across his sensitive skin; writing.  
  
_Kakashi. I love you._  
  
His mother.  
  
Something in his chest hurt. It was sharp and it twisted and made a sour taste fill his mouth. He choked, gasping into his mask and tasting the sweet electric oxygen. His mother's fine-boned fingers curled around his and he held on tightly, grounding himself against the world spinning out of control around him.  
  
They didn't speak anymore.  
  
  
Iruka was sitting next to him on the bed talking quietly when sight came back.  
  
Kakashi couldn't count the days—didn't know how long it had been—but time had seemed interminable between the endless sedation and vague awakenings that seemed more dream than reality. Iruka had come to him the day before—or was it two days ago?—and had pressed his favorite toy—the dolphin plush his parents had given him as a baby—into Kakashi's hands without a word before climbing onto the bed without asking for permission and squeezing his hand.  
  
Iruka stayed with him while his parents worked and through the agonizingly formal meeting with the Uchiha clan elders. He stayed with him past visiting hours when Gai sobbed apologies and tried to clutch at him and into the night, sleeping in the bed next to his and helping him to the bathroom when he'd accidentally wake the other boy by banging into his bed with his crutches. Kakashi had never felt so helpless or so numb.  
  
He knew he was on an anaesthesia drip and that he had steel pins in his arm and leg, but he couldn't feel anything and not being able to see it all just made it that more incredible. Every time he touched the metal contraptions holding his limbs together, he felt like it was a huge joke; like he would wake up at any moment and this would all be a crazy and messed up dream.  
  
Iruka became his ground, his only assurance that the world _was_ real. He told Kakashi that his new additions were cool and not hideous and that the doctors promised a full recovery, that he would get out soon. Kakashi relied on him.  
  
Then the Hyuuga came.

Iruka was sitting at the foot of Kakashi's bed describing the newest light show the mall was planning to put on when he was interrupted by a polite cough. No one did polite coughs like a Hyuuga and Kakashi was instantly on edge.  
  
“Good afternoon, Kakashi-san,” the Hyuuga said; a male. That didn't help, they all sounded the same.  
  
“Hyuuga-sensei,” he replied neutrally. Iruka shifted and hopped off the bed. Kakashi almost shouted at him to stay where he was.  
  
“Hiashi-sensei, Hizashi-sensei.” Iruka greeted politely, taking Kakashi's hand in his and squeezing it reassuringly—he hadn't left. Kakashi almost collapsed with relief.  
  
“Good afternoon, Iruka-kun,” the gentler of the Hyuuga twins responded. Kakashi could almost hear the smile he was undoubtedly wearing.  
  
“Kakashi-san, we are here to do a check up,” the first Hyuuga said, a clicking sound coming from his direction.  
  
“The bandages will come off today and we will see how your eyes are doing. Are you going to be okay?” Hizashi sounded concerned and it seemed like he was directing his second question towards Iruka. Kakashi squeezed Iruka's hand, not wanting to ask him to be okay with staying.  
  
“I'll be okay,” Iruka promised, squeezing back.  
  
The process seemed to take forever as the endless streams of gauze were slowly unwound from his face. The skin around his eyes and cheekbones felt over-sensitised and the air brushing across it _hurt_ . He couldn't quite remember how to open his eyes and was scattering his memory banks on the floor of his mind when a finger touched his right eye and gently lifted his eyelid.  
  
The world burst forth in blinding white before melting into blurs of color. Kakashi blinked as white flashed into his vision again, the gentle grip of a hand on his chin keeping him from pulling back.  
  
“He's tracking quite nicely,” one of the Hyuuga commented over the flashing white light. “Pupil is responding quite nicely as well; colour is good. Whites are all white. There appears to be no capillary damage.”  
  
Kakashi was starting to feel uncomfortable and ignored as one of the brother's scribbled down notes.  
  
“So, Kakashi-kun, How do you feel?” the Hyuuga with the light asked, clicking it off. He peered in as Kakashi's eye twitched wildly and tried to adjust. “Tell me what you see.”  
  
“I see a guy with a bright light.” Kakashi said flatly, frowning when he realized he was looking at the less friendly of the twins. Hiashi smiled grimly.  
  
“Very funny. I am going to take a look at your other eye before we give you a vision test. Will that be to your satisfaction,” Hiashi commented lightly, “Guy without a bright light?”  
  
Kakashi shrugged.  
  
The other eye—the left one—couldn't see quite right though the Hyuuga twins didn't seem very surprised about it. They had probably been in the operating theater when his eye had initially been attended to.  
  
Kakashi's eye _hurt ._ It was hard to explain, but just _seeing_ hurt it. Light hurt and colors were at once too sharp and too dulled. It was gaining and losing focus frenetically like a small child was attempting to operate it. The area _around_ it hurt. It felt like someone had punched him in the eye repeatedly and then dragged a dull knife across his face to complete the job. Something was wrong.  
  
“Is the nerve damaged?” he asked bluntly when Hiashi frowned. The man looked slightly surprised before realizing who he was talking to.  
  
“It's a little more complicated than that,” the man said calmly, putting away his pen light. “The capillaries within your eye have burst so you have massive contusions on the retina. Not to mention you have an inoperable aneurism putting pressure on the optical nerve which is why you are on anticoagulants." He hesitated before adding, "Among other things.”  
  
“But the clot should dissolve without problems,” Hizashi chimed in, giving his brother a dirty look. “Until then, you should minimise your activity and rest your eyes. That being said...” He held up a clean gauze pad.  
  
Kakashi sighed.

 

“Kakashi, what wish were you going to make at the temple?” Iruka asked, tracing the glow-in-the-dark constellations he had put on the ceiling.  
  
“It's not important,” Kakashi mumbled, eyes closed behind his bandages.  
  
“I can take your wish for you if you like,” the other boy hinted.  
  
“I want a pony and a castle and an army of ninja,” Kakashi mumbled tiredly.  
  
“That's not funny.” Iruka frowned. He was quiet for a moment.  
  
“You know Obito-kun went with my parents...” He paused.  
  
“He'll be in good hands,” Kakashi mumbled, shifting under his sheets.  
  
They didn't say anything for a while and Iruka thought Kakashi had fallen asleep.  
  
“Hey, Iruka,” the gray-haired boy said suddenly. Iruka looked at him.  
  
“Do you wish you went with them? Your parents, I mean. You're going to be all alone, you know,” he said quietly, tilting his bandaged face towards the other bed.  
  
“Kakashi, I wanted to stay with you,” Iruka whispered. “I don't want you to be alone.”  
  
Kakashi grunted and turned away.  
  
Much later, after it seemed Iruka had fallen asleep, Kakashi whispered a quiet _Thank you_ into his pillow. He would never know the boy had lain awake straining to hear him.  
  
  
A week later and Kakashi rather feebly made his way up the temple steps where his accident had taken place, insisting he could make it without assistance because, after all, what were casts for? His white post-op patch accentuated the scabbing wound that marred his left cheekbone in a way that had passerby bowing and offering blessings for his health as they descended. Gai crawled alongside him garnering even more sympathy, legs bound to boards—to make their pilgrimage an equal race—his cousin and her blond husband hovered worriedly around him, annoying him all the way up the stairs.  
  
Iruka ran ahead and purchased an ema—cutely painted with a leaping dolphin and a scarecrow in a field to represent harmony—so he could write a wish on it and took full advantage of Kakashi's handicap by _walking_ around him and tying his wish on the line by the highest branch he could reach on the wishing tree, next to an omikuji with the wish: “I want you to live a happy healthy life” written on the back. He laughingly told the boy that he had made sure to ask the gods for a pony and a ninja army and that he'd be sure to put in a request with Santa to make sure all his bases were covered.  
  
Kakashi halfheartedly threw a pile of leaves at him while Minato laughed and confiscated his crutches so he couldn't go after Iruka, Kushina shaking her head ruefully as she helped Gai to tie a wish for Obito to the tree. Sakumo ruefully ruffled the ponytail of his newest ward and thought to himself that life was certainly not boring with the two boys. He wouldn't live long with all the heart attacks they kept giving him.  
  
Iruka's cheerful amulet danced as a sudden wind caught it, spinning it so that it went from text to image to text in a blur. Sakumo leaned in as it spun at his eye level, smiling gently at the wish Iruka had made.  
  
_I wish that Kakashi will never be alone and that we can be together forever._

**Author's Note:**

> This work was originally posted on Livejournal in 2011 as part of the annual 12 or 25 Days of Christmas challenge. The story takes place by years and utilises Japanese honourifics as a necessity. I tried to use canonical names wherever possible and created original character names as needed.
> 
> Due to the conditions at the time, the writing is a bit clunky but will largely remain unedited.
> 
>  
> 
>  **Vocab Notes**  
>  Omikuji – Paper upon which fortunes are written which you buy at a temple. You can either keep it or tie it to the temple for good luck or so that it may come true. You may also donate a fortune to another or return yours to get a new one.
> 
> Shimboku – A divine or sacred tree, also known as a God Tree
> 
> Shimenawa – A length of braided rice straw rope used for ritual purification sometimes decorated with shide (lightning shaped paper decorations representing purity). Shimenawa usually adorn temples and holy trees and mark a divine, holy, or spiritually clean place. Minato wears one around his neck in Naruto Shippuden/Gaiden.
> 
> Torii - A gate, primarily holding a symbolic function, that is shaped like a bird's perch. Tori itself means "bird". It symbolizes the separation between pure and profane planes and often signifies entry to a Shinto or holy place. They may be found anywhere, from the middle of a lake to the empty mountaintop.
> 
> Ema – Wooden tablets purchased at a temple upon which you write a wish and hang on rope or on wishing walls. You may also write a wish on a paper similar to an omikuji or like a tag and affix to the wishing tree's branches.


End file.
